Jack Ma Says Alibaba to Be Judged on World Progress, Not Just China

Alibaba's Jack Ma said the company should be judged by how much progress it brings to the world, as it seeks to become a major Internet company.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) –– Alibaba Executive Chairman and co-founder Jack Ma has noted that it is the company's goal to be judged by how much progress it brings to the world, as it seeks to become a major Internet company, competing with the likes of Amazon (AMZN) and others.

"In the past decade, we measured ourselves by how much we changed China," Ma wrote in the letter to investors. "In the future, we will be judged by how much progress we bring to the world. This challenge is enormous, but it is also a blessing to have this rare opportunity. This challenge requires us to do our best day-to-day, but most importantly it requires us to think about what is best over the long-term."

Alibaba, which is slated to go public on the New York Stock Exchange later this month, is pricing its offering between $60 and $66 a share the company said in an updated filing. The pricing would value the company around $147 billion.

Ma explicitly stated that though Alibaba was set up to help small businesses make money, businesses in the 21st century have a responsibility to help solve the large-scale problems facing society today, especially with the help of the Internet. "This transformative work will not be easy, and it will require us to be consistent, to work across many dimensions, and to focus on what's best for the long-term benefit of our ecosystem and its participants," Ma wrote in the letter.

Alibaba, which was founded in 1999, is set up for "customers first, employees second, and shareholders third," as Ma has stated in the past, but intends to create long-term value for shareholders by creating "sustainable value for customers." Ma stated that the company has done well by its long-term investors, including Yahoo! (YHOO) and Softbank, who have rewarded the company with both time and money, allowing Alibaba to grow to the size it is today.